“You know what I find funny?”
I raised my eyebrows as he closed the drawer and stood.
“This collection is perfectly organized—not one DVD out of place. But your apartment is another story.”
My jaw dropped, and I scoffed at his brazenness. Whether it was the truth or not, he didn’t have to say it out loud.
“That’s not true. It looks so nice in here.” I waved my hand around to the somewhat tidy room.
“Sure, the living room and your classroom are always neat, but what about your bedroom?”
My hand that I was waving around, showing him proof that he was wrong, limply fell to my side.
Touché, asshole.
And before I had time to react, Josh moved around me and headed straight down the hallway toward my bedroom. As I took off after him, mumbling obscenities, I did a mental tally of the state of my room. Then my pace picked up, but I was far too late.
Damn it, little legs.
Out of breath from the short sprint down the hallway, I contemplated my life choices—literally all of them—as I braced myself against the doorframe and Josh examined the chaos.
The cream carpet was covered in clothes—clean clothes—that I’d thrown from the closet while trying to get dressed to go to the bar with Hazel and then again that morning for the aquarium. The chair in the corner had also fallen victim to a pile of clean clothes. And the white sheets were a tangled mess at the bottom of the bed, along with the yellow blanket I’d used for years. Two of my pillows were at the top near the headboard, and the other two were nowhere to be seen.
There was jewelry scattered over the weathered wood dresser on the opposite side of the room along with a few odd and end things I hadn’t found an actual place for yet.
But besides the clutter, it smelled good. The sweet rose water scent from the plug-in in one corner was fresh yet subtle.
“Looks about right.” Josh smirked, standing amid the mess.
“Thought you knew I wasn’t perfect, babe. Sorry to disappoint.”
I proceeded to kick the clothes across the floor and closer to the closet door, which I refused to open lest I wanted more comments about my inability to keep my shit organized.
“Your imperfections make you all the more perfect to me,” Josh murmured into my ear, his hot breath brushing over my neck. His hands snaked around my waist the moment his lips found the tender spot beneath my ear.
A shaky moan escaped my lips, and Josh’s hold tightened. Nearly lost to his touch, it was the press of his hard length against my lower back that made me jerk out of his hold.
“We,” I said, taking a deep breath and stepping back to add more space between us, “are supposed to be talking.”
Josh rolled his eyes and took a step forward, which I mirrored with a step back.
“I think we could just tell Reed that we talked and then use this time to dootherthings.”
The dark glint in his eye was too much for me to handle while trying to keep my composure and remember my promise, so I averted my eyes. Looking anywhere but at him, I continued.
“I promised Reed.”
With a heavy sigh that told me he understood, Josh took a seat at the edge of my bed. He propped his elbows on his knees and then looked up at me expectantly, big blue-green eyes taunting me.
“What did the man say we should talk about?”
“Zach… and Sam.”
As soon as I said his ex-girlfriend’s name, the tension in the room grew thick, and I had an eerie suspicion that in focusing on Zach that day, I’d missed something with Josh.
“I think we should just tell Reed to mind his own damn business. That sounds like a better idea to me.”
“He’s just worried, Josh. Does he have a reason to be worried?”